Building a Castle
by Whispering Darkness
Summary: Her Inner had been with her for as long as Sakura could remember. It was only during her first year at the Academy that she realised that the voice was not in her head at all, but that it came from a cloudy shape floating next to her. (Basically a short retelling of Hikaru no Go. Only with more Shogi and Nara and Ninja)
1. Setting the board

**Chapter 1 - Setting the board**

* * *

From as young an age as Sakura could remember, she was never alone - not even when there was no-one else around.

Her parents often left her to play in their small backyard by herself, for example when they had paperwork to go over for their small business. Most of the time the little pink-haired girl could be found playing quietly in the small sandbox, where she would painstakingly build a castle and stare at it with pride, only to overthrow it half a minute later - turning it back into flat sand so she could start all over again and try to build one that was even more beautiful.

Today she left the sandbox alone, her attention drawn instead to the flowers that were fully in bloom.

"These flowers are pink," she said with an air of certainty, watching the small, bright flowers on a plant that hung in a basket from the low wooden fence surrounding their yard. The girl carefully touched the petals and a broad smile spread across her face.

A moment later she was already turning away, skipping towards the sole tree in their garden. Her hand trailed over the bark until her eyes settled on an insect crawling steadily upwards along the trunk of the tree. She pointed at it. "Bee," she said out loud.

There was a sound not unlike a sigh. But it wasn't Sakura who had made the sound, and it wasn't the bee either, she was sure. Which means it must have come from the voice in her head.

She wasn't wrong, because it spoke up a moment later. "That would be a beetle," the voice informed her as quietly as a whisper on the wind.

The pink-haired girl leaned closer and narrowed her eyes. It was blue and bees were yellow. She also couldn't quite spot his wings. It _could_ be a beetle, she supposed.

"You're a beetle," she informed the insect in turn with a decisive nod.

"I'm glad we've managed to establish as much, child," the voice commented, "We'll make a shinobi of you yet, I suppose."

She giggled. With her pink hair and civilian parents, she knew she was nothing like a ninja at all. Still, if the voice thought she'd make a good ninja, maybe it wasn't such as odd as she thought?

It was right about the beetle after all.

* * *

Her mother took her by the hand when they walked towards the busier streets filled with market stalls. A multitude of voices filled the air, sinking and rising up around her like the rhythm of a familiar song. The scent of yakitori sticks and other treats made her nose twitch with interest.

The hold on her hand was firm, though, and Sakura was tugged her towards a fish stall – the scent of which overpowered all others when they approached.

It was as they were moving to the next stall that the voice – that was usually so very quiet that she could only hear if she paid close attention - called out more loudly than she'd ever heard it. "Watch out!" it exclaimed, "Go left."

She reacted instinctively to the voice and tugged as hard as she could on her mother's hand, to the left.

"Sakura," her mother complained at her sudden action but went along with her.

There was, perhaps, a rush of wind to their right.

Nothing happened.

The little girl turned her head left and right and then, after a moment's thought, up as well. She couldn't see anything out of place.

"Well done, child," the voice told her, whisper-soft once more, "that could have been a rather unfortunate collision. Shinobi should pay better attention to civilians than that, even if they are only genin."

Her mother, however, was less approving. "Sakura, you can't just yank on my arm like that!" she scolded her, "If you want to take a look at something, you need to tell me."

"But the voice said we had to go left," she told her mother earnestly. "Because of the shinobi."

"What voice? I didn't hear anything. It was probably someone talking to somebody else." Her mother shook her head. "It doesn't matter, just don't do that again, alright?"

The girl nodded dutifully.

That was good enough for her mother and Sakura was dragged towards the next stop on their grocery list.

"You did fine, Sakura," the voice said – the tone of it so much calmer than her harried mother. "Your mother didn't see it, she's a civilian. But that genin would have run right in to you. You responded quickly and correctly. Good job."

She glanced at her mother, wondering what the woman would say about the voice so clearly disagreeing with her, but she didn't react.

It dawned on her then, that her mother couldn't hear the voice at all - not even when it was being louder than normal. The voice belonged only to Sakura.

If no-one else could hear the voice, she considered with a deep frown on her face, it was probably just in her head. Kind of like an inner her.

* * *

Without needing anyone to tell her, Sakura _knew_ that talking to someone that no-one else could see or hear would make her weird. It would draw the bad kind of attention to her, something people could make fun of her for.

She didn't like being weird, but she _did_ like the voice. Her inner voice was helpful and it was a part of her that had always been there. The idea of it _not_ being there would have been so much weirder than anything else.

But Inner couldn't hear her without Sakura actually talking to her, even when she thought very hard at herself. So the girl was left whispering to Inner when no-one else could hear, or writing notes for her own eyes to read.

Inner talked back to her without issue, because no-one else could hear her, though to be fair, her voice started out as just a whisper which _was_ very hard to hear unless she really paid attention to it. Over time, though the voice grew in volume and depth.

It was during her first year at the Academy that Sakura realised that voice was not in her head _at all_, but that it came from a cloudy shape floating next to her. The cloud was wispy and if she reached out and touched it, it didn't feel like anything at all.

That was where the voice came from, though, and now that she thought about it, the voice she had long since dubbed 'Inner' in her mind sounded nothing at all like her own - so perhaps it wasn't an 'inner self' at all.

The cloud had a deep voice, almost as deep as her father's. It was a smart voice too, thought, sometimes using words that even Sakura didn't know, and she knew a lot of difficult words. So while the cloud was not an inner her, it was still familiar and helpful, which is why Sakura didn't mind it tagging along with her – even if it probably didn't make her any less weird than having a voice in her head.

* * *

Days in the Academy went by quickly. She knew that most of her classmates didn't enjoy it even nearly as much as she did, especially the theoretical side of things. Kiba always cheered when it was time for sparring or kunai throwing and those were exactly the parts that Sakura didn't look forward to.

But when Iruka-sensei told them about chakra, taught them how to circulate it through their system and to focus it all in one area as to make a leaf stick to their forehead.

"It's an exercise aimed at improving one's focus more than anything," her voice informed her. He was always adding to their lessons, expanding on them and deepening her understanding. That was a good thing, because Sakura was sometimes frustrated that Iruka-sensei would stop his lectures just when it was getting interesting.

"One of the main chakra points lies on the forehead, where chakra can be expelled through with practice," the voice continued and Sakura fought hard to divide her attention between this lecture and the leaf sticking to her forehead. It was tougher than one would think, as both required some amount of concentration, but despite the leaf wobbling a little after the voice started talking, she managed to keep a grasp of it.

"The body has 361 tenketsu, but most shinobi learn only to actively use those in the hands and feet – those are the most important to develop for the use of jutsu or water walking. It is important to be aware of the others even if you cannot use them actively, as they influence the chakra flow of the body. There are some shinobi who can block these chakra points during battle, such as those from the Hyuuga clan."

She listened carefully, mentally filing away the questions she wanted to ask later, when she was without an audience. What was water walking, was that what it sounded like? And was there a way to reopen blocked tenketsu in battle?

For now her questions had to wait, but that was alright because she knew the voice would answer any question she asked of him – he'd never once refused her, not like her parents, who sometimes said it was an 'adult conversation' or her teachers who smiled and called her a bright girl and said she would learn everything she needed to know about this or that later, under the guidance of her jounin-sensei.

That left only the voice to ask, and thankfully he was nowhere near as tight-fisted with his knowledge, only impressing the importance of keeping certain information to herself or being careful with some of the exercises he taught her. Sure, sometimes the voice refused to teach her something, but it was always for a reason, such as needing to master another skill first before she could take it a step further.

Sakura could understand that, she wasn't stupid.

So when she got home and her voice told her that if she wanted to learn water walking, she needed to start with climbing trees using her chakra, she happily agreed.

* * *

One day, she looked up at her cloudy voice and found she wasn't looking at a cloud at all. It wasn't a sudden change, though, it was more that suddenly she realised that the change had happened.

It was as if, day by day, those wisps of clouds had condensed together into a shape roughly like that of a person. It had happened so slowly that she'd hardly realised it, except to note now - with some surprise - that at some point, the cloudy voice had become a tall, red-eyed man and only his translucence and oddly shaped white hair were anything at all like a cloud.

His name was Tobirama Senju, but she was allowed to call him Sen.

"It's a good a name as any, and perhaps since I am but a remnant of what I once was, it is only fitting," he said in that slow, pondering way he sometimes had – as if each word was a heavy stone that he had to carry to exactly the right spot and he then dropped it with a dull thud.

"Sen," she agreed, glad to have a name to call the voice. It made her feel less lonely, somehow, to have the voice turn out to be a person. And he was always with her, so it was sort of like having an invisible brother who taught her things, told her stories and sometimes, much like her parents, he pushed her to do things she didn't really feel like doing.

In the case of her parents that usually amounted to chores, like cleaning her room.

Sen, however, talked her into spending an extra hour after school practicing one of her least favourite subjects, taijutsu.

Sakura wasn't usually the type to complain, but the kata he taught her was difficult to get right and by the sixth attempt her arms were burning from the exertion. So when he criticised her high kick as being 'sloppy', the tired, sweaty girl crossed her arms and glared at person she could see standing in the empty space beside her.

"So I'm no good at taijutsu," she bit out, "everyone has their weaker subjects. I can make up for my lower marks in taijutsu with the written exams - which means _all of this_ is pointless."

Her parents would have scolded her for being as unmannered as this, but Sen just stared back at her angry, heaving form for a long moment.

"Yes," he agreed a moment later, entirely placid in the face of her anger, "You would, most likely, manage to pass this year in such a way. Perhaps you will even manage to graduate the Academy altogether by simply compensating for a lack of taijutsu skills by excelling in another area."

She blinked, her anger falling away – because Sen was agreeing with her? Not that he never agreed with her, but he wouldn't have convinced her to do this if he didn't think it was something she needed to do. And part of Sakura was smart enough to know that while she didn't enjoy it, physical fighting skills _were_ important, maybe even lifesaving for a shinobi. Not for the Academy, perhaps, but certainly out there in the field. Sen had told her plenty of stories of actual missions for her to know that sometimes pure strength was not enough, but at other times all of your smarts couldn't save you.

"So… I can stop?" she hesitantly checked, sure that there had to be a catch somewhere.

Sen nodded gravely, "Of course. This is _your_ life to live and you are free to live it in a way you feel is best for you."

"Right," Sakura said but didn't move. She bit her lip, her face twisting into a frown while she stared back at him. Those red eyes seemed to be waiting, expectant and she just _knew_ he would be disappointed if she gave up now.

Perhaps a part of herself would be disappointed too.

He didn't give an inch – his expression was a placid, blank slate, as unreadable as the bodiless voice he'd first manifested as. But then, she didn't _need_ him to say anything, because she was fully able to fill in the blanks herself.

She could give up now, make it through the Academy, but that would not save her life and the lives of her clients or comrades later on. The unspoken truth filled the empty, expectant silence between them.

The tension in her body melted away and her face became smooth and still.

Without another word Sakura started up the kata again.

Sen didn't comment on it. They both merely continued on as they had been.

But this time when she performed the kata, there was something sharp and fierce to her punches and kicks. And afterwards, the bone-weary, shaking exhaustion was just as unpleasant, but she could stand to suffer it because it was _earned_.

Sakura didn't care how unladylike and sweaty she looked as she stumbled home, long after the planned hour had passed, because she could recognize a hint of satisfied pride in that familiar red gaze.

* * *

"You're getting better," her invisible teacher and friend said approvingly after their customary after school session. This time it had been kunai throwing, an exercise she'd never much liked because she hadn't been good in it. She still wasn't the best of their class, but she was better now that she had gained a little more strength in her arms. "I think that's enough exercise for today, though," he continued, "If you're up for it, I'd like to enlighten you further on the subject of seals – the overview your teacher gave on it was disappointingly brief."

"Seals?" Sakura repeated, "But Iruka-sensei said that it was enough to be able to recognize the most common ones and that we wouldn't be learning anything about them in the Academy."

Sen nodded, looking rather annoyed, "So he did. But I think it is a subject that will suit you. You enjoy theoretical knowledge and logic puzzles and your chakra reserves are small but from what exercises we've done so far, you appear to have a fine control over them."

She smiled, basking in what was a great compliment, coming from the perfectionist by her side.

He read the agreement in her face easily enough and nodded. "We can start just going over the basics in your room. All you'll need is ink and regular paper."

As promised, Sen gave her a thorough understanding of the fundamentals of sealing. For some people the lessons would have been boring, but Sakura actually liked knowing the theory behind any skill. So she paid close attention while he taught her about chakra flow and to recognize a large amount of common elements in seals and how they can be combined and what that would result in. She was also encouraged in practicing her handwriting and accuracy and he made her draw out specific seals on his spoken instructions, then made her analyse what they would do. Of course, the seals were harmless drawings – she had no access to the expensive chakra absorbent scrolls and the ink was not infused with any of her own chakra, but it was good practice.

Despite not showing her the effects of these seals in person, Sen discussed with her the variety of ways such seals could be used. And Sakura enjoyed these lessons – the seals themselves were like puzzles and the discussions on their use were creative and tactical exercises that suited her bright, inquisitive mind quite well.

Besides, the seal lessons were a nice break after the physical exercises he still silently expected her to practice after school.

* * *

Sakura didn't have many friends. Aside from Sen, there was really only Ino. The other girl had defended her from bullies once and had been kind to her ever since.

Ino was the complete opposite to Sakura: she was pretty and brave, and raised as the heir to a shinobi clan. The blond was not one to back down and could come across as loud or abrasive to some people but Ino was good at reading body language, so she never crossed the line into offending people – at least not unintentionally.

Sakura still wore the red ribbon the other girl had gifted her every day, and even Sen looked upon it approvingly. He wasn't necessarily fond of the other girl who he said could overshadow Sakura at times, but he had agreed with the words the girl had spoken when she'd provided this gift.

"Your friend is right," Sen had told her that evening, at home. "I will never understand childish bullies and this entire situation seems entirely insignificant to me. But I suppose that doesn't matter as this is not insignificant to _you_. So I'd suggest you follow young Ino's advice – wear that ribbon on your forehead with pride, for yourself and for the friend who believes in you."

She wore that ribbon that afternoon, while Ino dragged her along and gossiped to her about their classmates and shinobi and everything else the girl wanted to share. Sakura didn't have much to tell the other girl in turn, because aside from the instructors at school and her friend's parents she didn't know any shinobi. Well, perhaps Sen counted as a shinobi, but he wasn't exactly someone she could or would gossip about.

So Sakura just let the other girl's words wash over her and she revelled in being able to answer or laugh without being worried about people looking at her strangely for doing so when she was ostensibly by herself. Sen hovered a few paces behind them, seemingly satisfied to trail behind them like a shadow.

In between the bold anecdotes and gossip, Ino led them from one store to another, to try out make up, get sprayed by a flowery perfume and then onwards to one of the blonde's favourite stores to try on cute clothes.

Sakura dutifully changed into the dress her friend had trust upon her and hesitantly walked out of the fitting room.

"Oh, wait just a moment," her friend said and dashed out of the store while Sakura stared in the mirror, barely recognizing herself. The red dress was outspoken, too tight for her to be able to lift her leg into an upper kick, and it made her look entirely unlike herself. She looked like a pretty, civilian girl – like the Sakura she _could_ have been, if she'd been... a _different_ her.

Ino was back only a short moment later and finished her look by tucking a single pink cosmos flower under the red ribbon. "There," Ino proclaimed with a big, infectious smile, "you look beautiful."

Sakura happily smiled back at her friend.

When she walked home, wearing that new dress, Sen shook his head and muttered about the impracticality the piece of clothing. She wasn't offended, exactly, because she'd been pretty sure even in advance what Sen would have to say about it. But it looked pretty and Sakura wasn't _just_ a shinobi, she was a girl too.

She could look pretty if she wanted to. When they came upon an empty street, she even proclaimed as much out loud. "I can look pretty if I want to," she informed Sen and any shinobi who might be lurking nearby.

Sen just stared at her and _clearly_ didn't get the point. But, since he didn't say anything, Sakura shook her head and let it go. Ghost or not, he was a man after all.

Men didn't get things like that, or so Ino had assured her.

* * *

They were in the library, Sakura quietly leaving through yet another book, searching for one that provided a clear overview of human anatomy. Their guest speaker, Sato-sensei had been interesting but very short in the information she had shared. Sen had started up a lecture about the importance of medical support in their village and just how important it was for at least one member of a team to have a solid grounding in it. He didn't tell her anything about how it worked though.

She asked him later on, on the way home, "Can you teach me some medical skills?"

"Some medical skills?" He repeated, sounding almost offended. "It's not a field to dabble in. You need a firm grounding before you can even think of aiding another person. Having a small amount of knowledge will likely cause more harm than good."

"But didn't you say that at least one member of a team should have at least a grounding medical aid?" Sakura pointed out, "How will I get that without learning? You have to start somewhere."

"And ideally, that starting point would take place under the guidance of a trained medical professional," Sen drily answered. "But I suppose we could gather some grounding knowledge on the theoretical side. Knowledge of the workings of the human body is useful in a variety of ways and something you can study on your own."

They made a detour to the library and Sakura had started her search for knowledge with good hopes that dwindled the longer she went on. "All of these books only provide the barest information," she complained, her whisper harsh due to her frustration. "There has to be a useful book in here somewhere, it's the library."

She scowled, took another pile of potentially disappointing books to her table and sat down to leaf through them.

"I suspect you won't find it in the Academy section of the library," Sen pointed out. "The genin or chuunin section would be far more likely."

She glanced at the other occupants of the library, seated at tables nearby. _I'm not allowed in those sections_, she wrote down on her notepad, despite the fact that he was already aware of that.

He snorted, "Knowledge is only dangerous to those unprepared for it and I'm right here to guide you away from anything potentially harmful. There's absolutely no reason to restrict yourself to the Academy student books if it will hold you back from learning."

_Except for the fact that it's not allowed._

His eyes skimmed over the words she wrote down and he shrugged. "It will be good practice to get a book out of here unnoticed. It will help you in more ways than one."

_We're not supposed to practice our ninja skills on allies_, she wrote down, underlining the allies a few times to drive the point home.

"You're not acting against allies by borrowing a book, Sakura. If you put it back afterwards, what could possibly be the harm?"

Sakura huffed and left the library altogether. But that night, Sen told her a story as he always did before she went to sleep - long after her parents had stopped doing so - and it was about ninjas and loyalty to the village and about growing smart and strong.

And Sakura wasn't stupid, she knew that the moral of the story was that you had to grow strong to protect the people you loved and your home, even if that meant breaking a rule here or there.

Of course, she knew exactly why he told her that story and she wasn't entirely sure whether that was really right. But Sen could be convincing, and she was also kind of curious whether she could actually do it.

"Alright, I'll do it," she finally told him quietly on the way to school the next day. "But first you will need to help me write out a working storage seal. I won't be smuggling a book out under my clothes."

Sen nodded. "We will need some chakra infused paper, then."

After school, they skipped the physical training in favour of Sakura going shopping. She had saved up enough of her allowance to be able to pay for the chakra infused paper and the more expensive brush that would prevent the ink from dripping.

At home, in her room, she carefully followed Sen's instructions. Drawing out the seal wasn't all that hard, not after all the practice she'd done. Infusing the ink with chakra while she was drawing was more difficult, at first she was splitting her focus but after a few moments, she managed to slide her chakra flow into a natural part of her strokes. After the seal was done, she stared at it for a moment and then glanced up at Sen.

"It will work," he told her without a hint of doubt.

She held her breath while she tested it. Her eyes widening when her pillow disappeared into the piece of paper and reappeared with just a puff of smoke.

"I did it," she proclaimed with a grin. Sure it was just a simple seal, but it was one she had created herself and it worked.

"So you did. On to the rest of your plan?"

Her plan of sneaking a book from the shinobi library. Her breath caught and her heartbeat quickened, but she didn't lose her grin for a minute. Instead she dug a pink diary that she'd never really used and carefully removed the cover from the binding.

"On to the rest of the plan," Sakura agreed. "I'll just need a moment."

* * *

In the end it wasn't even difficult. Sakura just waited for a quietest moment in the library to approach the genin shelves with Sen as her lookout for anyone coming near. The books she took were sealed into a page painstakingly added to her pink diary with a careful application of chakra.

She smiled a shy, sweet smile at the librarian as she left.

Back home, in the safety of her bedroom, she unsealed the books she'd spirited away with a giggling kind of excitement.

After her first 'borrowing mission' went off without a problem, she worried a little less whenever her constant companion encouraged her to test her skills in small, harmless ways. Because he was right – these skills would be important while out in the field and she wasn't hurting anyone by testing them out, but she would be using them to help her comrades later.

One day, Sakura used one of Naruto's loud, overblown pranks as a distraction to use a seal to copy a piece of paper on Iruka-sensei's desk.

Back at home, she practiced her calligraphy to match that of her teacher, another important ninja skill that Sen wanted her to practice, and later on used another one of Naruto's unwitting distractions to snatch another document from Iruka-sensei's desk.

It concerned the group assignments for a survival exercise. She looked down at it for a moment and, at Sen's urging, made a clean copy in Iruka-sensei's writing, changing the names in their groups around - not because she actually wanted to be in a specific group or wanted to win but because it was good practice, or at least Sen told her it was.

He also made sure to caution her not to go too far and not to get overconfident. "Your sensei will know someone changed it," he told her, "but I suspect he will humour you and keep a look out for whoever seems too satisfied with themselves. Act as you normally would and don't try anything else anytime soon, he will be keeping an eye out for someone messing with his papers again."

Sakura nodded. She purposely hadn't put herself on Ino's team, even if she found the louder girl's presence reassuring most of the time. Instead she had paired her friend with Sasuke and Chouji and herself with Shino and Shikamaru. Kiba was with Naruto and Hinata. She'd left the other teams as they were, without meddling with them.

Just as Sen suspected, her sensei humoured the prankster, though his sharp eyes slid between her and her unsuspecting classmates. She shyly walked up to her teammates for this exercise. They were both calm, quiet and smart, so even though Shino was odd and Shikamaru was lazy there were definitely worse people to spend three days stuck in the forest with.

Sakura always had an emergency pack with clothing, kunai, food and tea as well as two sleeping bags in a seal in her diary, just as she had several other items sealed in storage seals on other pages.

So that evening, after Shino had set up a fire, Sakura unsealed her supplies, prepared food and tea and offered the boys the second sleeping bag to zip open and share.

Shino shook his head, passing the bag on to the thinner boy. "I do not require it. Why? Because my jacket and my bugs will be enough to keep me warm in these temperatures."

Shikamaru accepted the sleeping bag thankfully, but frowned down at it for a long moment. "Sakura," the Nara asked, glancing between the sleeping bag and the bag with other supplies she'd taken from that seal. "Do you always have this with you?"

"My diary?" she checked, looking down at the book in her hands. It was a soft shade of pink with a Sakura tree on the cover in full bloom. It was a beautiful book, but she had never used it for its intended purpose. Sakura had always had Sen to tell about her day and had used notepads to communicate with him when she couldn't talk to him, or to jolt down her thoughts when she needed to consider something.

After realising how useful it was to have unobtrusive storage seals with her, however, she'd started carrying this book around instead.

"Yes," Sakura continued without waiting for confirmation. "I like having a book at hand to write in and it seemed like the logical place to add in some storage seals. They're very handy, so I almost always have it with me."

"We haven't covered any actual seals in class yet, and you're not from a shinobi family," Shino pointed out.

"Well no, but storage seals aren't all that difficult. You just need to copy the diagram exactly, allowing a few minor changes depending on the shape of the scroll or paper you will be writing it on and infuse it with the right amount of chakra," the girl explained. "It's easier with chakra infused paper and special sealing ink, though it can be done with just regular supplies."

"Could you teach us?" Shikamaru asked and Sakura blinked at that unexpected request but then gave a small shrug. They didn't exactly have anything better to do after all, and extra practice was always a good thing.

"Ok," she agreed and unsealed her sealing supplies from a different storage seal in her diary. It consisted of sheets of special paper that absorbed the chakra better than regular paper, special ink and a book on seals from the library. Her more secret seals, the ones that Sen had taught her that were not as easily explained were painstakingly sealed into a patch in the inside of her vest.

"Alright, so we should start with just practicing the basic seal itself without using special ink or chakra, to get the shapes of its components exactly right. Once you can get that down we can move on to matching seal to the material of choice and only afterwards can we practice infusing the ink with chakra while writing the seal. That part is a bit more tricky, but you can both do the leaf exercise right?" she double-checked.

Shino nodded. Shikamaru ignored the question and drew the book towards himself. "This is a library book?" he observed.

"Yes. Uh, you won't tell anyone right?" Sakura asked a little nervously, because it was clearly stamped as belonging in the chuunin section.

"You don't have any shinobi family to ask for help," Shino said. "It stands to reason that you would seek out other sources of information. I can see no harm in it."

"We won't tell," Shikamaru agreed.

She let out a breath and smiled at them.

The tree of them practiced, after explaining the basics she let them practice the writing of it first of all, the chakra would come later. Sakura used that time to get a few more storage seals written on scrolls herself – they could always come in handy. She wrote them out carefully, taking her time because it was more difficult outside by the light of a fire, though they used some of her study books as sturdy underlayers.

Aside from some pointers here and there, Sen was mostly quiet to prevent her from calling out to thin air in the presence of her classmates. But he was there, which was especially comforting outside in the dark forest.

All in all, it was a nice enough, peaceful way to spend her evening.

* * *

The next day they set out again, following the map Iruka-sensei had provided them with.

For all that Shikamaru looked lazy, he was good at drawing up plans. The deep cliff and rushing stream beneath that they needed to cross was considered carefully. "Do you have a rope, Sakura?" he asked her after a moment's thought.

She nodded and took her diary from her schoolbag, finding the correct storage seal easily enough. A careful application of chakra later brought forth the sturdy, coiled length of rope.

The Nara looked at the rope and nodded, a slow smile settling on his face. "Good," he said. "Do you think your bugs can carry that rope across and around that tree trunk, Shino? The smaller one right in front of us."

Without bothering to answer, the Aburame lifted an arm and his bugs were called forward, their small dark bodies filling the air with an uncanny buzzing sound.

It didn't take long for the tree to be pulled down entirely and set firmly into place. The rope was then tied to a tree on their end, carried around the trunk of a more mature tree next to where the younger tree had stood and secured back around the tree, leaving them with a railing to hold as well.

"I'll go first," Sakura offered. At the raised eyebrow she received from Shikamaru and the silent stare from Shino she added quite firmly. "I'm the lightest."

Aside from being the lightest, she had also learned how to stick to trees with chakra and even how to water walk, so the risk of her falling was less and if she did fall she had more chance of being able to pull herself out of the water. Having someone on the other side would make it easier to act if something went wrong.

"Alright," Shikamaru said.

She nodded back at him determinedly before she took hold of the rope. It was high up, which made the crossing nerve-wrecking, but as long as she didn't look down, didn't look back but kept her eyes focussed on Sen, who had drifted across ahead of her, she could do it without faltering.

"Well done," the ghost said when she was firmly on the other side, and then looked back across the chasm towards her classmates. "That Nara will make a fine teamleader one day."

"Hmmhm," she quietly agreed and turned her focus to Shino, who was starting his way across, surrounded by a buzzing cloud. He made it to her side safely, as did Shikamaru a moment later.

For a moment the trio looked back across and the progress they'd made.

"Right," the Nara said, having stepped up as lead, just as Sen had pointed out. "What's next?"

Sakura took out the map. "We need to keep heading in a south-westerly direction until we get to a river." She turned unerringly in the right direction thanks to her skills in reading maps. The two boys followed her, not a word of doubt about her heading and she felt herself begin to smile.

It took them two more days to get back to the Academy and they were not the first ones to make it.

But whereas Kiba had a red, angry looking patch of skin on his arm that the boy couldn't stop scratching, Naruto was sopping wet, Hinata looked miserable, Chouji looked as if he was starving, Sasuke had a few rips in his shirt and was glaring at anyone who looked at him and Ino's hair was wilder than Sakura had ever seen it, knotted and filled with twigs and leaves, the three of them were none-the-worse for wear.

So while a bedraggled Ino still managed to enthuse about how cool Sasuke was, and Naruto and Kiba bickered over whatever situations they'd gotten themselves into, Sakura, Shino and Shikamaru just stood quietly satisfied with themselves and with the making of new friends.

* * *

**A.N.** It's been literally years since I posted a new story, wow how time flies. I have been writing snatches now and again but just about all of it is half-written ideas more than anything. But I want to get back into gear again and hoped that at least shaping up this one story and getting it out there will help.


	2. Ranging Rook

**Chapter 2 - Ranging Rook**

* * *

After the forest, Shino or Shikamaru sometimes sought her out for shared assignments, or even just to talk. It was nice to have someone she could turn to with questions she was too shy to ask Ino - about shinobi things, not girl things, obviously. Like Ino, they were from a clan, but unlike her friend they were quietly un-judging about things Sakura didn't know or have instead of the loud or shocked reactions Ino could at times give when what Sakura told her of her experiences differed from her own.

It was because of that understanding, that almost-friendship, that Sakura dared to be just a tad bolder than she otherwise would have been.

Perhaps she would have been too scared to do it even _now_ if it was for herself, but this was for Sen.

Because Sen always helped her with everything but she could tell that there was a hint of _longing_ to some of his stories. Over the years Sakura started to see how her ghostly friend was confined to his role as her confident, teacher and advisor without the ability to act for himself. He never said anything about needing more, about being unhappy in this role he had taken up, but she could tell that while he wasn't unhappy he was also… resigned.

Sakura couldn't really change that, couldn't give him the freedom or agency he on rare occasions seemed to long for. All she could do was listen to his advice and invest her energy in the things he found important.

In this specific case, that led her to what technically amounted to trespassing. Because the teahouse she had her eye on stood on the very edge of the Nara grounds, in their woods but outside of the gates that surrounded the clan houses.

The Nara were not the most easily offended of clans, though, and Sakura didn't have a shogi board at home. From what she'd heard from her classmate and from Sen the Nara would have plenty. Sure, she could have asked Shikamaru to borrow one, but the other boy was wont to ask questions, or even worse – to put the pieces together himself.

She didn't want a curious Nara wondering who she would be playing against, not even if said Nara was Shikamaru.

The teahouse, on the other hand, stood on the very edge of the Nara lands and from her observations wasn't subject to any visitors. Sakura suspected it would still equipped with a shogi board despite all that.

So she snuck in, wearing a henge both as a precaution and as practice, and found that yes, a dusty shogi board held a centre place in the room. Sakura smiled at the sight of it but didn't immediately approach it. Instead she did a small round of the room and checked the sightlines towards it.

"What do you think?" she asked Sen, turning to face him.

He smiled back at her. "It has been a very long time since I've played a game of shogi."

Sakura took that as an agreement and sat down in front of the board, using her sleeve to carefully wipe it clean of dust. "I've never played before, so I won't be much of an opponent," she warned him.

He seemed entirely unbothered by that, so she dug around to find the game pieces stored in a beautiful wooden case, decorated with flowers and a deer. Sakura took them out one by one, studying them each in turn and placing them on the board with Sen's guidance.

He was patient in teaching her the basics and knew exactly how to explain it to her so that she could easily grasp the rules and their implications. When she understood the basic rules, he had her set up several problems for her to solve before they finally played a practice game.

By then it was already growing dark, so Sakura carefully put the pieces back where she found them and went home. She noticed Sen looking back at the lonely board.

"Don't worry," she told him. "I'll learn. You know I enjoy puzzles and tactics. We'll play a real game soon." It was yet another thing to add to her schedule, but Sakura liked learning new things. So while she was regretful that it took time out of her studies of seals or anatomy, she also didn't mind slotting a new pastime into her week.

Sen was always willing to provide what information Sakura wanted or needed. Perhaps he didn't tell her everything, but he always focussed on helping her improve in whatever she put her mind to. But _this_, this one thing was not just for her, but for _him_.

That made it important to make time for this. So even if it took time and required her to trespass on clan grounds, it was still worth it.

* * *

She was tidying up her desk, putting away her books and notes and grabbing her lunchbox when Shikamaru walked over to her. Most of their classmates had already rushed out of the classroom to enjoy their lunch outside.

"Sakura, do you have some time after school?" Shikamaru asked her straight out, eyes half-lidded but still focussed on her.

She tilted her head at him, wondering what he wanted. Her friend was always difficult to read. This could be anything from something as casual as a homework assignment or as serious as him confronting her about sneaking onto his clan lands.

Of course he _should_ have no idea about the second of these, but those dark, piercing eyes made her feel as if he was omniscient at times.

"Alright," she agreed readily enough, trying to hide her worry.

He nodded, did a half turn, and waited for her. She stood up, quickly joining him. Part of her wanted to ask what this was about, but if he didn't tell her there might be a reason for that. Besides, Sakura would know soon enough, she'd just have to be patient.

They walked outside together and then split up without another word exchanged between them. Shikamaru made his way over to Chouji, slumping down on the ground next to his friend and Sakura joined Ino, where the more social girl was holding court with the other girls in their class.

Compared to Shikamaru, Ino was shockingly bright and loud, but she was still her friend and Sakura liked spending time with her, though she generally preferred it when it was just the two of them. Ino amongst a group was like a sunflower at the heart of a garden, even surrounded by other flowers that only made the yellow stand out more brightly – while Sakura's tree stood at the very edge, completely unremarkable aside from when the small, pink flowers fleetingly blossomed on her branches.

But Ino smiled at her, when she joined their little group, and would never let the other girls be mean to her. That was enough to make Sakura settle at the back of the group where she quietly ate her lunch.

After school, she exited the classroom to find Shikamaru slouching against the opposite wall in the corridor. He glanced up at her and pushed off into an upright position, shoving his hands in his pockets. She fell into step with him, glancing at a face that gave nothing away. Her shoulders were tense while she let him lead her away from the Academy, not to the Nara compound at least, but to a hill she knew he frequented when cloud gazing.

He sat down on the ground, leaning back casually and tilting his head to stare up at the sky. Sakura sat down next to him, her posture straight and eyes focussed on him.

"I hope you don't mind," he finally started, not looking at her. "I've been working on those storage seals you taught us but infusing them with chakra has been… troublesome."

"Hmm," Sakura said, relaxing now that she knew what this was about. "It could be that you need to need work on infusing the seal more steadily with chakra. But it would be better to check the writing first of all. Do you have a draft of the seal?"

"Yes, I brought it with me," Shikamaru answered and sighed as if it was all far too much effort. "Those seals you had were useful during our survival exercise, so they will be even more useful when out on missions. Still, it's more tiresome than I thought."

"Chakra control comes easily to me," Sakura explained while her friend took the drawing from his back and passed it to her. "I'm not sure if I can help much with that, because it's mostly improved through exercises you can do yourself. Though improving chakra control _would_ be a worthwhile endeavour for you either way, as it should also help control of your shadow jutsu."

"Hmm, you think so?" he asked slowly.

She nodded but didn't glance up from the paper as she answered, focussed on checking the lines and components for any flaws. "While the strength of your shadow technique is reliant on the amount of chakra you pour into it, better control would make sure you didn't waste chakra by overpowering it, or spend too little so your prey escapes. And better control will help you speed it up, making it easier to catch someone."

"You should be more careful in what you reveal, Sakura," Sen's voice came from her left, sounding amused. "Not many know the details of clan techniques. They were zealously guarded not too long ago, and even now it is only trusted allies who are aware of the details."

She startled and looked up. Thankfully, her habit of looking to the invisible being had been squashed years ago, so she looked to the Nara and not to her teacher and friend.

He stared back at her, raising a single eyebrow. "How do you know that?"

She shrugged. "If that's a secret, it's a rather obvious one. Just observations, what information was freely talked about in the village and my own knowledge of chakra control and similar techniques were enough to put that together."

Granted, the person speaking 'freely' in this case was Sen, who had been right at the centre of the alliances forged between the clans, and inter-clan cooperation. Not to mention that he was a highly skilled and intelligent chakra sensor, so he was better than most at discerning information especially concerning chakra techniques.

But while Sen couldn't be overheard by anyone, Sakura would have to take more care in the future. It was one thing to discuss clan techniques with a member of that clan, but another if someone had heard her. She couldn't afford to be so loose-lipped in her distraction.

"Sorry," she offered.

The Nara shrugged and leaned back again, which she took to mean that she was forgiven. Sakura looked back down at the seal, checking that there were no mistakes that could affect the chakra flow. "This looks good," she said with a decisive nod. "Could you show me how you write it out on chakra paper?"

With a muttered 'troublesome', as if _he_ hadn't been the one who requested her help in the first place, he drew himself up a more upright position. He was focussed, though as he carefully wrote out the seal, infusing it with chakra on each stroke.

Both Sakura and Sen were watching carefully, and she tried to focus on the feel of his chakra the way Sen had been teaching her. The feel of it was familiar to her, but it was nearly impossible for her too tell just how much or how little he was using.

"His chakra is too uneven," Sen pointed out. "He's infusing it in burst at the start of a stroke, instead of spreading it out in the motion of it."

"Hmm," Sakura said and wondered how much she would be giving away to her friend if she repeated all that. She wasn't a sensor, so she shouldn't be able to tell. When Shikamaru was done and demonstrated the seal failing (thankfully not in the explosive way a seal could fail if it was ill-written or overpowered with chakra), she frowned down at it for a long moment before meeting his eyes.

The frown melted away at the steady look he gave her in return. There was nothing of boredom in his gaze now, but there was also no judgement. It was expectant but patiently waiting in a way that was not unlike Sen.

"Are you already practicing the Nara shadow techniques?" she asked him, instead of commenting on the seal.

"Yes," he answered simply, but his eyes were narrowed.

She nodded in acceptance, not asking him for more information on how far he'd gotten or to show her any of it. Instead she pointed out, "A technique like that will need to be powered with chakra throughout. The moment you stop feeding it chakra, it stops. A seal is similar, when it comes to writing it. You need to feed it chakra constantly while writing, but _without_ the initial burst that you would presumably give to your shadow jutsu upon activating it."

He stared at her a moment longer before sighing and relaxing back into the grass, loose limbed and easy. "A constant flow of chakra. That will take some practice," he repeated thoughtfully, his eyes straying back to the clouds. "Troublesome," he concluded with a mutter.

She laughed softly at the characteristic phrase. "A little work here so you can be lazy later?" she offered, "Storage seals _are_ very handy out on missions. Would make them a lot less troublesome, I imagine."

He let out a huff of a breath but didn't otherwise respond.

Instead of leaving, she leaned back into the grass as well, taking a moment to enjoy the peace of the day and their village.

After a long quiet moment, Sen started talking, telling her of the early days of this village, of the clans that each wanted their own compound, uneasy with living so close to former enemies or strangers and that's why they all had their own lands in Konoha. He spoke of the discussions and decisions that were made in setting up the Academy and how even now, genin teams still consisted of a jounin and three genin. He muttered about what a stupid idea it had been to carve the Hokages' faces into the mountain and that many of the trees in the village had been created due to Hashirama's techniques, still permanent now.

He was reminiscing instead of teaching her anything, but she didn't mind. It was nice, to hear his calming voice and to listen to these odd little anecdotes of people who lived right here in Konoha years ago and how their choices, mistakes and hopes led to things still visible in the village now. So she lay back into the grass as well, hands behind her head as she looked up at the sky and the clouds traversing it. Shikamaru was silent next to her.

She didn't say a word as time slid past slowly like the clouds, until finally, Sen fell silent. Eventually she stood and left with only a softly spoken 'bye'.

Shikamaru simply lifted one hand in what could have been a wave but didn't otherwise move. Which was more than she had expected, to be honest.

She shook her head fondly and walked home, Sen as ever by her side.

* * *

On Saturday she carefully snuck back onto the Nara lands, to the teahouse. The board and the box with pieces were just as she had left them, untouched in the days between her last visit.

She smiled and set up the board, confident enough in the basics of the game to place the pieces without second guessing. Of course, she didn't always make the best move she could have made, but this was a learning game and she was not afraid to make mistakes.

They played together for hours that day and again on Monday afternoon and Wednesday after school. As she learned and grew in her shogi, Sen seemed to start enjoying the games more and more.

Sometimes they played just once a week, other weeks they played nearly every afternoon. At some point, Sakura considered just taking the board home with her, but it was one thing to use an otherwise unused shogi board on Nara lands and quite another to actually steal from her friend's family, so sneaking in and out it was.

One day, during a game, Sen abruptly turned away from the board. "We have to go," he warned, "someone is coming."

For a second, Sakura just froze.

It was Sen's voice that quickly snapped her out if it. "Sakura!" he barked out, "Go now." He rarely ever sounded that serious and it was pure instinct to follow the urgent command in that voice and to rush out of the teahouse and leave the Nara grounds as quickly as possible.

The game of shogi they had been playing was left, half-finished, in their wake.

Sakura didn't dare come back after that, afraid that there would be someone waiting, either that or a trap set to catch any trespassers.

In school, she tried not to act too strange towards Shikamaru despite the fact that she was constantly expecting him to confront her – irrationally, because even if someone _had_ seen her and could tell it was a henge, how would they possibly know it was her?

It was two weeks later, on a Wednesday after school, when Sen quietly asked her to play another game of shogi with her, the implication that this meant going back to the teahouse very much clear.

"They could have set traps," she pointed out. "What if they catch me? It may just be a teahouse on the very edge of the Nara lands, but they are still clan lands. I could be in big trouble."

Sen put a wispy hand on her shoulder. She couldn't feel it exactly, but she knew it was there. "You worry too much, Sakura," he informed her matter-of-factly. "The Nara won't care – not enough to turn this into an actual trespass. Especially not when it concerns a civilian-born Academy student. And that is if they bother to try and catch you in the first place."

"But they _could_," she emphasized, turning around to look at him. "Wouldn't it be better not to risk it?"

The ghostly man stood, tall and silent as a statue. "Risk is a part of our lives, Sakura. As a shinobi we need to weigh risks, to decide whether taking a chance is worth the gains. I suppose that, in this case, the gains are not all that important, but it is something to keep in mind."

There was nothing at all in his voice that suggested he didn't fully mean what he was saying, but Sakura had known him all her life. The fact that there _wasn't_ any inflection to his tone, the complete lack of it made her remember the look in his eyes when he stared at the shogi board.

And she realised that this _was_ important.

The shogi board was the one place where Sen could influence the world. Where he could build something in a way that belonged only to himself.

It was something that was important to him.

It was worth the risk, she suddenly decided with utter certainty, like a piece of a puzzle had dropped into place showing a clear, unshakable image. "No," Sakura whispered, "No. We'll go and take a look."

But just because she decided it was worth it, didn't mean she wasn't afraid. Just that some things were more important than that fear. She swallowed back her nervousness and looked at the ghost who was always at her side. She reminded herself how lazy, easy-going and ultimately kind Shikamaru was and how very unlikely it was that he, at least, would be truly bothered by her actions.

Those reminders strengthened her resolve enough that she could convince herself to make her way back to the teahouse.

Sakura stared at it for a long moment from the shelter of the trees. She tried stretching out with her senses, searching for any traces of chakra. She couldn't find anyone nearby, but she was no true sensor so it was entirely possible that there _was_ someone with a small amount of chakra - or someone suppressing it.

"As far as I can tell, it is empty of any humans," Sen informed her, clearly having been doing the same, only more successfully. He didn't encourage her to press forward but left the decision up to her.

The girl nodded, straightened her shoulders and walked right in, hidden only by her henge.

The teahouse was empty of people, and she didn't notice any traps. The game that had been on the board last time was gone. Instead the shogi board was set in the regular starting position with one single, significant change. One piece had been moved forwards in a simple, conventional opening move.

"What?" Sakura whispered, eyes darting around for anything else out of place.

"Oh," Sen said and fell into an inscrutable silence.

"Should we leave?" the girl asked. She didn't like to prod him when he got like this, but she was nervous.

Her question shook him out of his thoughtful state. "No. No, don't worry, Sakura. I don't think anyone is watching. But this is… I would like to play them. The Nara are intelligent and while I enjoy playing against you, those are teaching games. It has been a long time since I could test myself against someone in truth."

"This is a game?" She asked and then considered it. "They're waiting for someone, whoever was here, to make the next move," she discerned. And while that was an odd response to a sort-of break-in, it was also very much like Shikamaru and quite possibly his family as well.

She wondered if it had been him.

Whoever it was, this was something Sen, her sort-of-brother wanted - for himself, instead of for her and for once it was something she could give him. "Alright," Sakura agreed.

Sen glanced at her and then sat down in front of the board with a strange feeling of ceremony. The white-haired ghost stared down at it for a long moment, far longer than such a simple move in the beginning of the game warranted. Even so, Sakura waited, not quite understanding the heavy atmosphere that filled the room but respecting it nonetheless.

Then he told her the move he wished to play.

She dutifully placed the shogi piece as he indicated. Sen stared down at the board for a moment longer before he nodded and they left, together.

* * *

The next afternoon, Sakura returned, approaching the teahouse carefully. Sen assured her that there were no chakra signatures nearby, so they went in and found that a new move had been placed on the board in the meantime.

The ghost seated himself in front of the shogi board and took his time coming up with his response. Sakura couldn't begrudge him that because he seemed to take pride and enjoyment from having something that was his. So she watched and waited, day after day as her ghostly companion and the unknown shogi player did battle on the board.

Until one afternoon they approached the teahouse and Sen warned her that there was someone inside.

She hesitated and decided to ask, because this part of her life was theirs or even just his, so while usually the decision was up to her, perhaps he should have the deciding vote in this. "What do you want to do?"

"The game is all but over," the man informed her stoically. "I would expect him to resign, so it does not matter much if we leave."

That was as good as a suggestion to leave, and yet, just from the way he worded it she knew that he'd be disappointed. Sakura had known him long enough to be able to tell that much. "But they won't be able to see through the henge, right?" she pressed.

"They will know it is a henge, and a powerful shinobi would be able to forcefully dispel it. I don't believe a Nara would do so – not for something such as this. I cannot promise this, though," her companion explained.

"I know," Sakura said and stared thoughtfully at the teahouse. "I don't want them to know it's me – mostly because it's _not_. It's you. But if we run, you'll have to stop playing anyway. Perhaps it's worth the risk."

She glanced at the ghostly man at her side and saw that something had softened in him, a hint of a smile playing at his lips.

"Yes," she said to herself. This was worth taking a chance. "Let's just go. If you agree?"

The tall man smiled down at her. "Agreed."

She breathed deeply to calm herself, straightened her back, wore the henge as a shield and – knocked softly on the door.

"Come in," a deep voice called out.

She opened the door to find Shikamaru's father sitting behind the shogi board, waiting patiently. Sakura recognized him from playdates at Ino's place when he dropped by to talk to her dad and from seeing him picking up Shikamaru from the Academy when he was younger. That made her less nervous than she would otherwise be when faced with a clan head.

"Nara-sama," she greeted him with a deep, respectful nod.

He nodded back at her. "So you're who I've been playing against these past months?"

"We are," she answered, despite knowing how odd the use of that plural was. She was wearing a henge anyway, so she was hiding anyway and it would feel… wrong, not to acknowledge Sen here, in front of his opponent.

The Nara was quiet for a moment, staring at her and she failed to suppress her nervousness entirely, fidgeting under his regard. Somehow, that caused him to relax and he leaned back.

"I resign," Shikaku-sama informed her deliberately. "Would you be opposed to a rematch?"

Sakura tilted her head and didn't look at the invisible man at her side. "No, not at all," she said, and she slowly approached the shogi board.

The girl sat down gingerly, just a bit more to the left of the front of the board than was usual – aware that _yes_, that would also be seen as decidedly odd. But she knew it was also appreciated, as that left enough room for Sen to share this space in front of the board, to sit there as a player instead of an observer.

The Nara didn't remark on it, taking her odd mannerisms in stride. Instead he took it upon himself to start the pieces toss. When the person to make the first move was decided and all of the pieces were placed on the board, three persons bowed their head in respect.

It was Sen who could claim that space between him and his opponent – on the board he left his marks and while the pieces were placed by her hands, it was his tactical mind that waged this war of generals.

It was roughly three hours in, that Sakura spoke up. "Forgive me, Nara-sama," she softly interposed in the quiet atmosphere of the high-level game, "I'm afraid I must leave you now. May we continue this at another time?"

"You have some place to be?" he asked her shrewdly, those dark, piercing eyes never leaving her face.

She looked down and nodded in agreement. Providing further excuses or details would only give him more to go on.

When she remained silent, the older man sighed. "It's troublesome, but I can return at the same time tomorrow. Would that suit you?"

"Yes, thank you Nara-sama," she answered politely, as if the other man was providing her with a favour. He was the clan head, after all, and his time was probably more precious than that of an Academy student, though with her henge she looked nothing like herself – it was based on the descriptions Sen had given her of a cousin of his but she looked different enough from the woman he'd described that the similarity didn't constantly bring up either fond or painful memories.

She stood up, bowed deeply and left on legs that were shaky not just from the long time spent seated, but also from fear of those eyes seeing straight through her. Shikamaru was smart – judging from the game she'd just watched played out before her, his father was no slouch either. If anyone could figure out her identity even without dropping her henge, it was probably him.

As Sakura left the woods and teahouse behind, though, her shoulders relaxed and her stride slowed. By the time she had found a busy store and an out of the way hidden corner to drop her henge, she was feeling giddy, as if she'd gotten away with a prank – the best kind of prank, because it was one that was also a gift to a beloved brother.

"I'm home!" she called out cheerfully when she entered her home.

"Sakura, welcome back," her mother greeted, "Did you have fun today?"

She took off her shoes, putting them away in the little cubicle and walked into the kitchen. "Uhu," she told her mother. "I went to the library and then spent some time playing shogi with a friend."

She was referring to Sen, not to the Nara clan head, and that made it just about true.

"Well, as long as you had fun," her mother said with a shrug, used to her daughter's more placid pursuits, such as her library visits or seal writing, even if those didn't quite fit the civilian's image of shinobi. Sakura had long since observed that her mother preferred hearing about those activities and not the kunai throwing or sparring, so she tended to more readily share these – even if her mother didn't quite get it.

"Can you set the table?"

"Yes!" she replied to the request with an unwarranted enthusiasm.

Sen shook his head at her fondly. "Glad to see you acting entirely inconspicuous," he commented sarcastically.

She grinned back at him. "I can't believe we did that!" she whispered to him in the relative privacy of the living room. "And we got away with it too."

The ghost shook his head. "The Nara clan head decided not to press it," he pointed out. "There's a difference. Either way, I suppose we did, indeed, do that."

He sounded dry, like an adult humouring a child, but Sakura knew he was just as happy about this as she was.

* * *

When Sakura returned to the teahouse the next afternoon, the Nara clan head was already there. They greeted each other politely and Sakura sat down in the same place she'd occupied last time.

This time, Shikaku-sama even offered her tea.

It was odd, to sit here in this teahouse with a clan head and a ghostly figure, drinking tea. And yet she was surprisingly comfortable. The Nara barely made any small talk and didn't press her when her answers to his questions were decidedly vague.

Privately, she suspected that he enjoyed trying to figure her out for himself - that just as his son, he enjoyed puzzles.

For that reason, and for Sen's sake, she kept quiet on personal matters even as this became a regular way for her to spend her late afternoons, and both shogi and the teahouse became more and more familiar to her. They didn't have a regular schedule – the Nara clan head had responsibilities and so did Sakura at times, though hers tended more towards things she'd promised to do for her parents or on occasion agreed upon sealing lessons or physical training with Shino or Shikamaru after school.

Afterwards, or sometimes even during the shogi games with Shikaku-sama, Sen took the time to explain to her why each move was made.

They didn't play together often anymore, though. And Sakura found that after everything she learned from the games she witnessed, she wanted to play her own games to test out her own theories and tactics.

One day, at the Academy, she decided that there was no harm in asking and ventured to find a Nara opponent of her own.

"Shikamaru?" she queried softly during lunchtime. He turned his head from where he was cloud gazing to meet her eyes. "I wondered if you'd want to play a game with me? Of shogi, I mean?"

He sat up entirely, looking straight at her now. "Shogi," he repeated. "I didn't know you played."

Sakura shrugged. "Not often," she admitted. "But sometimes. I don't have many people to play against, though."

"Hmm, sure," he agreed casually, "I'll play."

He always had a small shogi board with him, so they set it up easily. They didn't get very far, playing during lunch break, but it was fun to play against someone else and to get a glimpse of how his tactics compared to those of his father.

They played now or then, usually after school when his father was unavailable that afternoon – not that Shikamaru knew about that. Either way, the boy almost always accepted when she asked for a game and it was fun to be the player for once instead of the observer.

While she didn't win, she didn't think she played too badly either because Shikamaru always considered his responses to her moves quite carefully.

Playing against him also deepened her understanding of just why this was important to Sen and she felt closer to her unofficial brother with each game she played.

* * *

Time passed and before she knew it she was in her last year at the Academy. At school, Sakura was still known as the quiet, bookish one, but just because she didn't feel like showing off in class or wasn't loud or prone to providing answers when no-one asked her, didn't mean she was still as painfully shy as she had been.

Unseen by most of the outside world, Sakura had grown more confident in who she was and what she could do. Because of Sen, in large part, but it also helped that she had friends. Not just Ino, who she loved fiercely but who sometimes overshadowed her, but also Shino and Shikamaru who always took the time to actually listen to her when she talked to them.

In this last year, she spent extra time on physical training when she could, mostly endurance as it was hard to work on skill without an actual opponent. But Sen also taught her how to sharpen her chakra control even further, taught her how to walk on walls and water and to enhance parts of her body with her chakra.

And while Sakura wasn't talented as a sensor, he did his best to teach her how to identify familiar people and to try and reach out her senses for them as far as she could. They practiced using whichever chakra signatures were readily available, so mostly her classmates, teachers and the Nara clan head.

She still played shogi against Shikaku-sama roughly every other night, if only for an hour or two. Most times Sen came away as the winner to their games, which generally spanned at least two meetings. But that was certainly not always the case.

One night, in the week of graduation, Shikamaru's father informed her he could not make it for the rest of the week because he would stay home to support his son for the exams the next day and celebrate the day after when he graduated.

"That's fine," Sakura said agreeably, "I cannot make it either, for much the same reason."

"You also have a child set to graduate?"

"Hmm, something like that," she agreed without agreeing. "Next Monday then?"

The older man accepted that easily enough. "Next Monday," he agreed with a nod.

"That boy is too prideful," Sen commented, "Your other teammate is foolish, yes, but eager and willing to learn, not unlike yourself. But the Uchiha is arrogant, selfish and prideful."

"That's not true," Sakura said, defending her crush. Because yes, Sasuke could be prideful, perhaps, but it wasn't undeserved. "He was top of our class, he has a good reason to be proud of his skills."

The ghost stared back at her with a hint of that disdain that she hated to see on him.

"Pride cripples more often than it uplifts," he spoke as if it was a divine wisdom from ages past, "Be proud of achievements, of yourself and your village and your teammates, but never let pride hinder you from learning something useful. Be it a piece of information or a new skill."

Sakura wasn't willing to hear it. "But he lost his family," she said with clear emphasis, "He has to take pride in his own achievements, and his family name. It's all he has left." She tilted her chin up and stared unflinchingly into that red gaze. "It's not that strange for him to be a bit closed off. I can't imagine what that must have been like, for him."

Sen pursed his lips and was the one to look away, moving his gaze towards where she knew at some distance the wall surrounding their village lay – from where they stood, however, they couldn't see anything more interesting than trees.

Her companion was silent for a moment and Sakura was already drawing breath, ready to argue further when the ghost finally spoke up. "I can," he said with a deliberate steadiness. "I know what that feels like, and no child deserves to suffer that."

A moment of silence, undisturbed by anything but the breeze. She waited him out, knowing there was more to come.

"It's painful, and at times it may feel as if the grief can swallow you whole," the ghost's voice was duller than she'd ever heard him. "but we are shinobi, and we must go forward. Sasuke is living in the past, is living for revenge. That can never lead to a place worth going. Not if it causes him to give up on this team, on the new family he has been granted, without even trying. The Uchiha has closed himself off and refuses to see what he _does_ have left – including you, Sakura. You're a team now, and these are the people you must be able to count on as much as they must be able to count on you."

Sakura swallowed, sensing a darkness to his words, a shadowed memory that made a shiver run through her. She breathed, in and out, and didn't say anything more.

She walked home but the shadow stayed with her, because, as always, Sen was with her every step of the way.

* * *

It was her first real mission, there'd been a frightening attack with deadly intent by a nukenin and they were in a foreign country with no-one they could truly count on but each other. Team Seven.

Kakashi-sensei was awake now, though. He led them out towards the trees near their clients' house and threw a trio of kunai at their feet.

Sakura already knew how to tree walk, of course, it was something Sen had taught her roughly two years ago now. The two boys ran off to compete with each other and for a long moment Sakura just watched them. Watched how her sensei looked at their practice for barely a minute before he dug out his garishly bright book and wandered away from them.

She felt oddly defeated when she picked up the remaining kunai and then stared up at her tree.

Kakashi-sensei's eyes had moved right past her.

"Sakura," Sen said, quite clearly. "Let us go this way," he gestured to the left, to the opposite way her team captain had gone.

"Sensei told us to practice," she whispered, the kunai gripped limply in her hands.

"So he did. And I've been meaning to start teaching you about the actual use of medical chakra. Your grounding in anatomy is solid enough to start, if carefully. I trust you not to grow overconfident in this. So come this way and let us _practice_," Sen's voice held a dangerous note as he pronounced that last word.

Her hand tightened around the cold weapon and she looked up to meet red, expectant eyes.

Sakura nodded.

As she walked away, she did so without a single backwards glance.


End file.
